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Tag: gig economy

REUTERS/ROBERT GALBRAITH

The Gig Economy Appears to Be Growing– Here’s Why

With the rise of Uber, Airbnb, and TaskRabbit, there’s a sinking suspicion that the traditional 9-5 job is being replaced by flexible, independent contract work. But, despite the existence of multiple billion-dollar Silicon Valley startups hiring an army of independent contract workers, economists have had difficulty finding any evidence that Americans were more likely to be self-employed.

Uber (Reuters)

Uber Now Faces California Class Action Lawsuit

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, a Barack Obama appointee, granted class action status to a lawsuit claiming Uber Technologies Inc. illegally classifies its on-call drivers as independent contractors, rather than employees with rights and benefits.

Homejoy Toilet Paper (Cindy Ord / Getty)

Dumb VC: Homejoy Charges $19 an Hour, Loses $12 an Hour

Uber is now valued at almost $51 billion, a valuation that puts the “on-demand mobile service” (ODMS) leader at the level of Facebook in 2011. The company’s fund-raising success has spurred a vast number of “Uber for X” start-ups that are building corporate empires with legions of outsourced contract workers. But the “gig economy” seems to be operating the same money-losing business model as the “Dot-com Bubble.”

AP Photo

Uber Faces Doom as CA Judge Recommends Suspension

California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Chief Administrative Law Judge Robert Mason recommended that ride-sharing service Uber be suspended from operating in California for 30 days and fined $7.3 million for wilfully violating its 2013 CPUC settlement by failing to provide data proving that Uber and its California drivers do not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, neighborhood or medical disability in picking up passengers.

Tech workers (Oli Scarff / Getty)

In ‘Gig Economy’ Future, Employees Don’t Exist

The “gig economy” is the term for corporations embracing the “on demand economy,” “collaborative consumption” and “sharing economy” bandwagons to restructure “work” into small projects of limited duration so that big business can justify legally dumping employees and hiring contractors. With employee benefit costs exceeding 46 percent of wages and workplace litigation spiking, “employees” don’t exist in the future of work.